(7 of 8)
A cryptic message lifted from the couple's trash last Sept. 15, for instance, signaled Ames' interest in scheduling a meeting in Bogota. It read, in part, "If you cannot meet ((piece missing)) 1 Oct, signal North after 27 Sept with message at Pipe." Through electronic and personal surveillance, investigators soon decoded the message: North was a mailbox where Ames and his handlers conveyed impersonal, prearranged messages; Pipe was the dead drop where detailed messages, instructions and money were exchanged.
Last Oct. 6, investigators retrieved a message from the couple's trash that may prove most damaging of all. Written by Ames a year earlier, the message reads: "You have probably heard a bit about me by this time from your (and now my) colleagues in the MBRF." It suggests that Ames easily made the transition from his KGB patrons to their successors in the Russian intelligence service. Ames also wrote, "My wife has accomodated ((sic)) herself to understanding what I am doing in a very supportive way."
Wiretaps of the couple's conversations indicate that Rosario was not only supportive; she at least tried to impose a modicum of discipline on the operation. Snippets of dialogue reported in the affidavit show that she grilled her husband for every detail about his alleged interactions with the Russians. While Ames comes off as relaxed and somewhat careless, she frets constantly. Did he send the message on time? Should she get Paul out of the house? Did he find a deft way to transport large sums of cash? Often she seems nervous and distrustful of Ames. At one point, she challenges him: "You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"
Last week, when the couple were arrested, neighbors and former colleagues expressed shock. Ames and Rosario, they said, didn't seem like spies. In Colombia news of Rosario's arrest was greeted with outrage against the U.S. The Colombian chancellory ordered its ambassador in Washington to solicit official explanations as to why and how the CIA allegedly compromised Rosario during her tour at the Colombian embassy in Mexico City. If the charges prove false, Foreign Minister Sanin vowed, "Colombia will demand that the U.S. government make amends to re-establish ((Rosario's)) good name."
U.S. legislators also have demands in store. Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee proposed bipartisan legislation requiring high-access intelligence employees to provide full financial-disclosu re statements, and for the CIA to expand its use of polygraph tests. Democrat Robert Torricelli, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, promised, "Heads will roll."
Clinton, meanwhile, resisted calls to halt or cut foreign aid to Russia, holding fast to his support of Yeltsin and Russia's democratizing and economic reforms. "A great portion of our aid is to facilitate the dismantlement of nuclear weapons that were aimed at the United States for over four decades," he told leaders in both chambers. "It is in our interest, plainly, to continue this policy." The President's position is unlikely to change. In the roughly 10 months that he has known the Ameses were under investigation by a joint FBI-CIA task force, his policy toward Russia has not wavered.